Category Archives: Politics

#USElection2020 | Nov. 3rd, 2020 | It’s All Over But the Counting

November 3, 2020PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

VanRamblings will update the site tomorrow afternoon, with updated election results

10:30pm PST | U.S. Election Night Update

The electoral and College of Electors map of the U.S. | 10:30pm | November 3rd, 2020

Joe Biden addresses the U.S. electorate from Delaware late on 2020 election night

With many of the battleground states undecided, the Presidential race appears to be headed into a prolonged count, where the outcomes in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania won’t be known until Friday, as these states, and others, continue a count of the millions of mail-in ballots that flooded into each of these states over the course of the past month.
Still, turnout across the U.S. was robust, reflecting the sense of urgency attending a presidential election conducted under an extraordinary shadow — a deadly pandemic, economic collapse, and a debate over racial justice.
President Trump and challenger Joe Biden battled early into Wednesday morning with no clear winner, as major contests remained too close to call and prospects grew that a decision in the presidential race would await an ongoing count of votes cast before election day. Trump misspelled the word polls in a tweet in which he asserted, without evidence, that Democrats were trying to steal the election, tweeting, “We will never let them do it.”

Misrepresentation: “Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!”
The race to 270 College of Electors votes remains a nailbiter, late in the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 4th.
While President Trump is projected to win Ohio and the big battleground state of Florida, his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, insisted early Wednesday that “we believe we’re on track to win this election.” Biden cited Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where many votes — including an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots — were still being tallied in the bitterly contested presidential election that may take days to resolve.
“It ain’t over till every vote is counted,” Biden said. Around the same time, Trump fumed that “we are up BIG, while baselessly accusing Democrats of “trying to STEAL the Election,” as per the since deleted tweet above.
VanRamblings will continue our coverage of #USElection2020 tomorrow afternoon, and through until the last ballot is counted across the U.S, — and perhaps beyond that date (likely, this Friday, November 5th), as President Trump disputes the vote count in Pennsylvania, and has served notice that he intends to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, VanRamblings remains confident that Democratic Presidential contender Joseph R. Biden will emerge victorious, at the end of the day, and go on to become the 46th President of the United States of America.

9pm PST | U.S. Election Night Update

As of 9pm, ABC News projects Republican wins in Florida (25 College of Electoral votes), Kentucky (6), North Carolina (9) and Ohio (12), with Democratic flips from 2016, wins in 2020, adding Arizona (9) & Kansas (3).
At 9pm, CNN calls California (55), Oregon (7) & Washington (12) for Biden.

7:30pm PST | U.S. Election Night Update
As of 7:30pm PST, the crucial battleground states of North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Virginia are too close to call. Based on the reported votes as of this hour, if Trump takes Michigan tonight, he wins the election, and returns to the White House.

The American networks have projected that Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden will win easily in Colorado, as the state has turned bluer with each passing election cycle. Meanwhile, the six combined electoral votes at stake in both North and South Dakota will go for Trump. Meanwhile, in good news for the Democratic Party, voters under 30 years of age across the Midwest are swinging towards Joe Biden in big numbers. In Connecticut, with seven electoral votes at stake in, Joe Biden wins easily.
CNN calls Michigan — which went for Trump in 2016 — for Joe Biden. Biden will also take the four electoral votes in New Hampshirey. Arizona, North Carolina & Iowa are projected to turn blue. As of 7:50pm, Joe Biden is projected to pick up the 20 electoral votes in Illinois. VanRamblings will update the site at 9pm PST, when more outstanding votes are counted.

A feeling of alarm and fear about the future of American democracy, from voters across the political spectrum, has voters in its hoary grip, more worried about the state of their country in 2020 than about themselves.
Early on, some thought the catastrophe of Trump’s 2016 election could be a catalyst for aesthetic glory. “In times of artistic alienation, distress is often repaid to us in the form of great work, much of it galvanizing or clarifying or (believe it or not) empowering,” wrote New York magazine’s Jerry Saltz.
Since assuming power on January 20th, 2017, as Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times, Donald Trump has made the whole world darker …

“There is no escaping it: America is on the ballot (today) — the stability and quality of our American governing institutions, the country’s alliances, how Americans treat one another, and our government’s basic commitment to scientific principles and the minimum decency that we expect from our leaders.

Four more years of a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, amplified by a TV network without integrity, and the cancer will be in the bones of every institution that has made America America.”

What has the Trump presidency taken from Americans?
Innocence? Optimism? Faith?
Trump snuffed out American confidence, flickering but real, that as a people Americans could go only so low, and forgive only so much.
With Donald Trump in power the past four years, Americans went lower — or at least a damningly large percentage of Americans did. Many Americans gave Trump a bye on his florid cruelty, overt racism, rampant corruption, exultant indecency, the coddling of murderous despots, the alienation of true friends, the alienation of truth itself, and the disparagement of invaluable institutions and degradation of essential democratic traditions.

American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, Sam Harris: ‘The Key to Trump’s Appeal’

Throughout the past months, polls from across America have consistently showed that about 44% of voters approved of Trump’s job performance — even after he’d concealed aspects of his coronavirus infection from the public, shrugged off the larger meaning of it, and established the White House as its own superspreader environment, and cavalierly marched on.
Forty-four percent of Americans support the worst President in American history, and will blithely cast a ballot for him today, if they haven’t already.
What in God’s name have so many of our American neighbours become?

We’ll pretty much know the answer to that question by 7:30pm PST.
Of course, there’s a good chance we won’t know who won the presidential election by later on this evening, given that more Americans than at any time in their country’s history voted by mail this year, due to the pandemic — not unlike many British Columbians last month — and as mail-in ballots take longer to count than ballots cast at polling places, and because each state has its own rules for how votes are to be counted and reported, some states will report results sooner than others … and yada, yada, yada …
In fact, key battleground states have been counting mail-in and advance voting ballots for weeks, and by 7:30pm west coast time, we oughta know close to the final voting count in those states, as MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki, and NBC’s Meet the Press host, Chuck Todd, suggest below.

MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki on What to Expect On Election Night As Polls Start To Close

Chuck Todd: “I’ll Be Watching Florida, Georgia & North Carolina tonight” …

Ninety-five per cent of the entire vote in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina will be counted by 7:30pm west coast time tonight.
Here’s the crew from Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com on when we can expect election result returns in every state in the union. And this …

If Biden wins any one of the battleground states above, he wins the election — and Trump is not only consigned to the dustbin of history, but is staring down the prospect of spending years in jail, given that he’ll no longer be able to use Justice Department staff as his personal lawyers.

Per journalists in the New York Times: “Seldom far from Mr. Trump’s thoughts, however, is the possibility of defeat — and the potential consequences of being ejected from the White House. In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses. He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him.”

Should Democratic presidential contender Joseph R. Biden not secure an undisputed win tonight across Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, and leave us having to await the vote count in Pennsylvania later in the week, in tomorrow’s VanRamblings we’ll write a bit about the College of Electors, and how this is the final deciding body which chooses the next President.
Here’s hoping Biden sweeps the board tonight, to become #USPrez46.

#USElection2020 | U.S. Long National Nightmare Will Soon Be Over

November 2, 2020News, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

The old tricks aren’t working. The October Surprise surprised no one. Junior says nobody’s dying. And the low whine of panic emanating from Trump, and his terrible children — Don Jr. mansplaining the pandemic, while Ivanka’s campaign “tea parties” try to convince suburban women that daddy doesn’t want you to die, just everyone else — well, it’s all coming to an end, perhaps as early as 7:30pm Pacific time Tuesday night, when all the Florida votes — including mail-in ballots — will have been counted.

The graphic above was published by MSNBC two weeks ago. For the past two plus years, American activist Emma González — the high school senior who survived the horrific February 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida — and her fellow Parkland student, David Hogg, have joined with tens of thousands of other youth across the U.S. to change gun laws, and work to vote Trump and the Republicans out of office.

In 2015, young voters by the millions across Canada cast a ballot for Justin Trudeau, in numbers previously unimagined, driving overall voter turnout across Canada from 60% in 2011 to 70% in October 2015. In the process, the overwhelming youth vote turnout gave Trudeau a majority government.
As pollsters tend to under count young voters — because, as can be seen in the 2016 MSNBC figures in the graphic above, more often than not those 18 – 29 years of age don’t get out to vote — given that in 2016 Donald Trump won the Electoral College (but not the popular vote) by the mere combined vote of 107,000 American votes in just three states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — out of a total combined U.S. Presidential vote of 128,838,342, with 65,853,514 votes cast for Hillary Clinton, and 62,984,828 for Donald Trump — and given the unprecedented strength of the 2020 student Get Out the Vote campaign, dedicated to mobilizing the largest early vote and the largest overall student and young persons vote in American history, and given their success to date in driving the vote of young people across the U.S., in every state, by anywhere from ten to fifty times their number in 2016, and given that pollsters haven’t properly accounted for the young vote — young people are notoriously difficult to reach by pollsters — the youth voter turnout in the 2020 election will prove the difference maker, and come the late evening of Tuesday, November 3rd, it’s gonna be a rout, and not just a nailbiter, for Democrat Joe Biden.

Don’t take VanRamblings word alone, though — listen to what seasoned political operatives, strategists and journalists in Canada, and across the U.S., have to say about Tuesday’s consequential Presidential election.

Slate’s Political Gabfest is my favourite American political podcast — every Thursday is a joy, when the podcast is published late in the afternoon.
The podcast is hosted by the cantankerous and recently divorced American journalist, David Plotz — the former CEO of Atlas Obscura, past editor-in-chief of Slate, longtime co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest and founder of City Cast, who lives with his three children in Washington, D.C. —&#32and Gabfest co-hosts, Yale University professor and legal scholar, and writer with New York Times Magazine, Emily Bazelon, and correspondent with CBS’ 60 Minutes, the humble, good-natured, engaging and oh-so-erudite John Dickerson — who in the embedded podcast below of their latest Political Gabfest episode weigh in on the U.S. election, in an informed, easy-to-listen-to and accessible manner that will give you a greater insight into what is likely to occur tomorrow night than you’ll hear anywhere else.

The members of The Herle Burly podcast — left-of-centre federal and provincial Liberal Party strategists, David Herle and Scott Reid, and former four-time Stephen Harper Conservative party campaign manager and right-of-centre political strategist (a supporter and advisor to U.S. President, Donald Trump) — also weigh in on the November 3rd, 2020 U.S. election.

The PBS Newshour’s regular Friday political panel, moderated by Newshour anchor Judy Woodruff, the panelists, moderate Republican, sober New York Times columnist and acknowledged Trump-disparager, David Brooks, and 83-year-old, left-of-centre American political columnist and commentator, Mark Shields, together discuss tomorrow’s inductive 2020 U.S. election.

Now, it would hardly be fair if VanRamblings didn’t allow you to hear from FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, the most trusted aggregate pollster in the United States. Up until 2008, Silver was a statistical sports analyst, whose track record predicting team and tournament wins garnered him an almost startling following among bookies, bettors, and those in the sports field.
As a lark, in 2008 Nate Silver decided to apply his statistical methodology to the U.S. election, both the Presidential and the congressional elections. Long story short, come election night, Tuesday, November 4th, Nate Silver’s prediction that Barack Obama would become the next president — having broken down the predicted vote in every county, in ever state across the U.S., and predicting with 100% accuracy, transformed Silver from a full-time sports analyst (an activity in which he and his colleagues on fivethirtyeight are still engaged) — and transformed him into the most trusted pollster in the United States. Here’s a bit of Silver on the election.

Nate Silver's aggregate polling website fivethirtyeight predicts an 89% chance Biden wins the U.S. Presidential election

Just click on the graphic above to be taken to fivethirtyeight’s 2020 election forecast

Today, we’ll leave you with this Joe Biden campaign ad, on decency …

#BC Poli | #BCElection2020 | An Historic Political Re-Alignment

October 29, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

In today’s wrap-up coverage of Decision 2020, in the main, we’re going to turn the column over to the reflections of others who’ve weighed in on the recently-completed, but not yet over, British Columbia provincial election.
That said, before we move to the observations of others, VanRamblings would like to weigh-in on what we consider to be the historic re-alignment of politics in British Columbia, and what that means for us going forward.

John Horgan assumes the leadership of the B.C. NDP on Thursday, May 1st, 2014

Since being acclaimed the leader of the B.C. NDP on May 1st 2014 — replacing Adrian Dix, who had failed miserably in the 2013 provincial election — John Horgan has taken the British Columbia New Democratic Party to the centre of the political spectrum, assuming the ground occupied by the B.C. Liberals as a resource extraction, pro-LNG, Site C dam loving, moving at a snail’s pace on promised social programmes like $10-a-day child care, and as a balanced budget loving provincial political party.
In other words, the B.C. NDP have become what the B.C. Liberals should have become following the defeat of the Christy Clark government in 2017 — as Wilkinson moved the party to the right, as a coalition of right-of-centre federal Liberals, and far right-of-centre Stephen Harper Conservatives, all the while failing to take the pulse of British Columbians, who in 2020 are no longer enamoured of the anti-union, corporate-backed politics British Columbians largely supported over the past 70 years, from the era of Wacky Bennett, to “Son of Bennett,” former Mayor and Premier Gordon Campbell — who on election tore up dozens of negotiated collective agreements — and vapid talk show host made good, Christy Clark.
With the BC NDP now occupying the centre of the political spectrum, and the B.C. Liberal Party set to transform into a Brad Wall-Scott Moe Sask-Party-style right-of-centre B.C. Party, as we wrote yesterday, the left side of the political spectrum in British Columbia has been ceded to Sonia Furstenau and Adam Olsen’s re-imagined eco-socialist B.C. Green Party.
VanRamblings is predicting that Premier John Horgan will step down in late 2023, with the leadership of the B.C. NDP going to his preferred successor, David Eby, or to the charismatic member for the Stikine riding, Nathan Cullen. With either leader, the B.C. New Democratic Party will be returned to government in 2024, for a third term of office in the province’s capital.
All governments have a shelf life, though — and that will be the case with the B.C. NDP when the 2028 provincial election is called.
By that time, B.C. Green leader Sonia Furstenau will have had ample time to define her party in the eyes of British Columbians.
Upon completion of the 2024 provincial election, VanRamblings predicts that the B.C. Greens will have picked up another half dozen seats in the Legislature, and in 2028 will have added more, for a total seat count that includes all of the following ridings: Victoria-Beacon Hill, Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Saanich and the North Islands, Saanich-South, Esquimalt-Metchosin, Parksville-Qualicum, Nanaimo, Nanaimo-North Cowichan, Cowichan, Courtenay-Comox, North Island, Powell River-Sunshine Coast, Vancouver-False Creek, West Vancouver – Sea to Sky, New Westminster, Nelson-Creston, and Kootenay West, with the B.C. Greens holding the balance of power in a coalition-style British Columbia minority NDP government.
In the eventuality outlined directly above, by 2028, now a well-seasoned politico, B.C. Green leader Sonia Furstenau will hold the whip hand, in support of minority NDP government — given there’s no way a B.C. Green Party could support a right-of-centre B.C. Party, although she could hold the potential for that possibility over the heads of the B.C. New Democrats.

Now onto the observations of others, including the political strategists who comprise the endearing and engagingly foul-mouthed, beloved by many (including me), and well-experienced political difference makers — the rumpled David Herle, the good looking Scott Reid, and the swears-like-a-drunken sailor, Jenni Byrne — who over the course of the past 40 years have helped shape Canadian politics, mostly at the federal level, but often enough, too, at the provincial level: the wily, riotously humourous, utterly non-rancorous, incredibly bright, truth-telling, and — believe it or not — non-partisan panel who comprise The Herle Burly podcast, a must-listen for anybody who has a life, cares even a whit about the state of our nation, and gives a good galldarn about how the sausage is made, and how decisions are arrived at in government that determine how our lives are lived in this country we call Canada — surely, that must be you.
David Herle, Scott Reid & Jenni Byrne on British Columbia’s Decision 2020 provincial election — guaranteed to be the best thing you’ll hear all day.

Let’s excerpt a number of comments made by political pundits published on The Tyee post-election, in a story titled, So, What Does BC’s Election Outcome Really Mean? Here a few of the more provocative insights …

UBC Political Science prof, Max Cameron

Several conditions contributed to the success of John Horgan’s NDP. First, the world is going through a social democratic moment. Social democracies in other places have managed the COVID-19 pandemic effectively, in part because they have invested in universal health care and economic security …

Second, the NDP government has shown that it pays to listen to science and make policies informed by evidence. Elected officials — notably Adrian Dix — worked closely with public health officers — especially Dr. Bonnie Henry — to win the trust of the public and mobilize support for public health directives …

Third, the NDP benefited from a minority Parliament. Minority situations encourage governments to be cautious, responsive and to hew closely to public opinion. Working within a historic Confidence and Supply Agreement with the BC Greens, the NDP ran a government that made few errors and suffered few scandals.

Finally, new campaign finance rules introduced by the NDP eliminated corporate and union donations and capped contributions from individuals. This levelled the playing field.

Karen Ward: With your majority, NDP, ‘choose to be brave.’

British Columbians rejected the vicious politics of Wilkinson’s Liberals. They don’t like it when you use people in trouble as a weapon to punish them further. I hope the message to the NDP is clear: Be brave.

Alex Shiff, former BC Liberal spokesperson

While the BC Liberals needed to win back suburban Metro Vancouver swing ridings that they lost in 2017, the BC NDP was able to defend those ridings while pushing deeper into the Fraser Valley. The BC NDP was able to scoop up voters who decided that John Horgan’s first term as premier was not the radical activist administration that some had predicted, and a change in government in the middle of a pandemic was ultimately not what the doctor ordered.

The results represent an inflection point for the BC Liberals. The party needs to find a way to regain their appeal to suburban and urban ridings in Metro Vancouver, who, along with the party’s dominance in rural communities, were key to a pathway to the premier’s office.

Mario Canseco, Research Co, B.C. polling firm

The BC Liberals have a monumental dual task ahead: a need to reconnect with federal Liberal Party voters who did not feel uncomfortable voting for the BC NDP in this election, and ensuring that voters do not see the BC Conservatives as a more palatable option in 2024 or during any byelections that happen before then.

It was going to be a daunting task for any opposition party to erase the emotional edge that the handling of COVID-19 had bestowed upon the BC NDP. This is the first provincial election in this century where the incumbent premier had an approval rating higher than 60 per cent heading into election day. The BC Liberals certainly faced difficulties adapting to a campaign that minimized their natural strengths: the ability to fill rooms of supporters who wanted to hear the leader speak and an effective get-out-the-vote operation when more than half a million voters requested packages to vote by mail.

George Abbott, former BC Liberal MLA and Cabinet Minister

The Liberal campaign struck me as largely tone deaf around the issue that dominates public concern: the pandemic. If a BC Liberal government was prepared to offer up $10 - 11 billion in stimulus spending (a short-term elimination/reduction of provincial sales tax), a more imaginative platform might have embraced, for example, a billion dollar program for climate-proofing communities from wildfire and flood. The best stimulus programs deliver a “triple word score:” create or protect jobs, generate spin-off economic activity and enhance community safety and services.

As we bring VanRamblings’ post-mortem coverage of Decision 2020 to a close, we’ll leave you with this thought, that will likely gladden the heart of Sharon Gregson, as well as the working moms who’ve had to remain at home during the pandemic to care for their children: the biggest mistake made by the NDP in this election was in not identifying child care as both an economic and a feminist issue, and promising dramatically increased funding and near immediate movement towards $10-a-day and greatly expanded child care, allowing mothers to return to work while building the economy — which is a critical concern going forward — while showing a greater degree of caring and compassion for the children of the province.
While John Horgan promised free transit for children 5 – 12 years of age, that initiative failed to meet the needs of working families with teenage children who, as is the case in Surrey, must walk 5.8 kilometres, as the crow flies, to their school before becoming eligible for busing. At the very least, the John Horgan government could have promised to halve the fare for children aged 12 – 18 — a necessary initiative they failed to implement.

C’mon back Monday & Tuesday for VanRamblings’ take on the November 3rd U.S. Presidential election, where Democrats hope to win the Presidency, and both houses of Congress — and return sanity to all of our lives.

In the meantime, tomorrow you can look forward to our regular Arts Friday coverage, on Saturday a new Stories of a Life, and then … Music Sunday.

#BC Poli | Sonia Furstenau & the Future of BC’s Green Party | Pt 3

October 28, 2020BC Politics, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Growing up on Vancouver’s eastside, as a child living in poverty, with a tough-as-nails mother who was the family’s main breadwinner — even if she was earning only 35¢ an hour — resident in a neighbourhood in the post-World War II period, when immigrants — who we called DP’s, which unkindly stood for Deported Persons, what the uneducated, lower and working class folks in the neighbourhood used as a pejorative to describe “outsiders” — for me attending school at Lord Nelson, and later Templeton Secondary, my classmates were mainly rough-and-tumble members of the Chinese community — because, let’s face it, Grandview Woodland is not too much east of Vancouver’s Chinatown — Indo-Canadian, Filipino, black, Asian and other persons of colour, as well as recent Italian emigrés, meant that this polygot assortment of multiple cultures and ethnicities were my friends, my best friends, with whom I played rugby and brutal football games in the rain during our three-times a week “Games” block, means that for most of my life, as we discovered during the recent mid-election debate of political party leaders that, as is the case with Premier John Horgan, VanRamblings “didn’t see colour” — we just took it for granted that this is the world we lived in, and didn’t see or acknowledge any differences.

BC NDP leader John Horgan apologizes for answer to question about white privilege

Now, this is 2020, and saying that you don’t see colour is verboten, is tantamount to saying that you have had no reason to reflect on the lived experience of minority members of the community you have been elected to serve, that as non-racist as you may be, you are not anti-racist.

In the 21st century we are witnessing necessary generational change in B.C. political leadership, that during the course of Decision 2020 was best personified by B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau, who spoke with clarity and with heart. Here is how, in an uncompromising manner, Ms. Furstenau answered the question, “How have you personally reckoned with your own privilege and unconscious bias as a white political leader?”

Of the three British Columbia political leaders on the debate stage that chilly, overcast Tuesday, October 13th evening, only Sonia Furstenau answered the question authentically and well, with compassion and grit.

There’s a rationale for VanRamblings opening today’s column as we did, as our way of saying that VanRamblings understands Premier Horgan on a visceral, lived experience level, and recognizes that — as is the case with us — underneath that veneer of sophistication lies the heart of a street fighter, one of whose goals in the recently-completed election was to vanquish his foes, and destroy his enemies, who represent a threat to all that he has achieved, and the quiet, deserving enjoyment of his life.
Make no mistake, for Premier John Horgan in the year 2020, B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau represented an evil force incarnate, who would seek to take from him everything he has gained in the first 61 years of his life. With down and dirty street fighter Geoff Meggs in place as John Horgan’s chief of staff, the British Columbia New Democratic Party was prepared to do whatever it took to wipe those damnable Greens off the British Columbia political stage, to consign them to the dustbin of history.
For Premier Horgan, that his campaign to eliminate Sonia Furstenau from the B.C. political stage failed, and failed miserably, caused him on election night to be something he had not been since calling an election on Monday, September 21st: generous, to Ms. Furstenau and to the Greens, in a way that he’d not shown at any time since he called his snap election, nor during the unusually becalming 32-day election period that followed.
One can understand why Sonia Furstenau, on election night, was full of anger and disapprobation for the re-elected Premier: John Horgan, who she had liked and trusted, and had worked with collaboratively and well during the three year Confidence and Supply period of coalition government, dating back to 2017 — had set about to destroy her, had visited her Cowichan riding many times — with the province’s beloved Adrian Dix, as well as federal NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, in tow — and made promises to the voters in Cowichan that were designed to wipe her off the political map.

As Ms. Furstenau states at the end of her address to the press and to the people of British Columbia, late on that chill October 24, 2020 election night, “We know you’re looking for us to put this election behind us and getting to work on the issues that matter. And we will not let you down.”

So, where to now for the gentle Ms. Furstenau, and her B.C. Green Party?
A provincial election called only one week after she’d won the contest for the B.C. Green Party leadership, caught Ms. Furstenau off guard and scrambling to put an effective election campaign in place, identify and nominate candidates across the province for her B.C. Green Party, set out a campaign itinerary, and develop an all important party platform — all of which she accomplished with steely determination, and uncommon élan.
Before we continue, a necessary bit of history on the evolution of the Green Party movement across the globe. In Europe, the Green movement arose out of the work of the far left Baader-Meinhof gang of the 1970s, who gave up violent direct action — industrial sabotage, blowing up buildings and infrastructure, and other forms of political violence — in favour of creating a Green movement that would enter government & fight against restrictions on immigration, advocating for women’s reproductive rights, supporting the legalization of marijuana, fighting for LGBTQ rights, having the state draft “anti-authoritarian” concepts of education and child-rearing, fighting against the dual threats of air pollution in the cities and the acid rain then destroying forests across Europe, fighting for civil rights, fighting against military incursions into developing states, and against state-sanctioned imperialism — well, you get the idea. The European Green movement is a progressive, far left-of-centre, multi-faceted civil rights and eco-socialist environmental movement — was in the 1980s, and remains so to this day.
The Green parties of Europe have held the balance of power, and more often than not sat in government for near 40 years, realizing substantive change as an activist movement well able to articulate the conditions necessary to create a fair and just state to serve the interests of all.
Not so in Canada. The Green movement at the federal level was founded by Jim Harris, formerly a far right member of the Conservative party, who was found to be so extremist that he was kicked out of the party, only to emerge as leader of the Green Party of Canada. In and across Canada, the Green Party has drawn candidates and support from two groups: the well-intentioned but politically naïve (with a surfeit of young, apolitical members), and those who are disenchanted with the old line parties (or parties that have an infrastructure, a broad and all encompassing raison d’être, and are committed to Canada as a diverse, inclusive nation).
For much of their life in Canada, the Green Party has lived up to and reinforced its billing as is often said about them, “Conservatives who ride bicycles.” And such was the case with former B.C. Green Party leader, Andrew Weaver, who was more than happy to join with then Premier Christy Clark in 2017 to have his Green Party form a coalition with the B.C. Liberals. Fortunate for all of us, Sonia Furstenau was having none of it, stating to Mr. Weaver that if he attempted to do so, she would cross the floor and join the NDP caucus. Adam Olsen, the then newly-elected MLA for Saanich North and the Islands told Mr. Weaver that he would sit as an Independent, should Mr. Weaver follow through on his intentions.
Thus we have the root of now former B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver’s “dissatisfaction” with his re-elected Green Party colleagues,
But that was yesterday, and today is a whole new day, an opportunity for Sonia Furstenau to establish the British Columbia Green Party as a social democratic climate justice political party committed to the Green New Deal.

“To provide all people of British Columbia with high-quality health care; affordable, safe, and adequate housing; economic security; and access to clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and nature.”

Which is to say, challenge the B.C. New Democratic Party on its left flank, while inspiring a new generation of voters, along with all other British Columbians who are committed to climate justice, and a fairer, more welcoming, inclusive and socially just British Columbia that meets the core needs of all of our citizens, from the bustling cities to B.C.’s suburban and vast rural communities, in every part of our province where opportunity and a safe, just, and sustainable future are what people are clamouring for.
Sonia Furstenau and Adam Olsen, and perhaps their West Vancouver-Sea to Sky Green colleague Jeremy Valeriote, have four years to re-invent the Green movement in Canada, to position the party as a viable and electable political force right across the province, to next time out, in 2024, steal a few seats from both the NDP and the B.C. Liberals, and grow the party.

After the writ was dropped and during the campaign, Premier John Horgan stated that he would not recognize the B.C. Green Party as deserving of party status, with all the financial and research supports that are available to a recognized political party, in the British Columbia Legislature. Should Premier Horgan fulfill his election commitment that four seats would be required to afford the B.C. Green Party status in the people’s house, Ms. Furstenau’s work to establish the B.C. Green Party as a truly viable political force across the province will be made that much more challenging.
Still, regardless of the decision Premier Horgan takes, Sonia Furstenau knows what she must do to gain seats in the house when the next provincial election is called four years from now: establish active constituency associations in all 87 ridings across the province, bring credible and electable candidates like Canadian marine biologist Alexandra Morton and energy and climate policy activist and academician Dr. Devyani Singh into the fold, to ensure that in 2024, the B.C. Green Party will field a slate of undeniable candidates who will win their ridings, and join Ms. Furstenau and Mr. Olsen with seats in the British Columbia Legislature.
Rarely has there been a more exciting time in B.C. politics — the closest we can recall is Dave Barrett’s activist government of the early 70s — when change and hope for a better, and a more sustainable future are not just the political agenda, but on the agenda of all progressive citizens.
As B.C.’s young climate justice activists, so inspired by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, go to the polls in ever increasing numbers in the years to come — as young people across the U.S. are doing now, in greater numbers and with greater force than at any time since the 1960s — hope for better is on the agenda, a hope that is best realized through broad support for the only political party in our province committed to a sustainable future that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs …

to maintain and improve human capital in society through increased investments in our health and education systems, with access to services, nutrition, knowledge and skills;
to preserve social capital by investing and creating services that constitute the framework of our society, focusing on maintaining and improving social equality with concepts such as cohesion, reciprocity and honesty, and the importance of collaborative relationships amongst people, encouraged and supported by laws, information and shared ideas of equality and rights, and recognizing that the economy and society and the ecological system are mutually dependent;
to maintain high and stable levels of economic growth as a key objective of sustainable development, and recognizing that abandoning economic growth is not an option, but that sustainable development is more than just economic growth, that the quality of growth matters as well as the quantity; and to improve human welfare through the protection of natural capital (e.g. land, air, water, minerals etc.), with initiatives and programmes that are defined as environmentally sustainable when they ensure that the needs of British Columbia’s citizens are met without the risk of compromising the needs of future generations.

By identifying and implementing the principles of the four pillars of sustainability through, as elucidated above, strategically sustainable initiatives, British Columbians might come to realize both a vibrant economic and an environmentally sustainable future for all of our citizens, in every town, city and village across every region of our natural province.